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World News Briefs; Solo American Balloonist Races Across Atlantic

Racing along at speeds up to 161 miles an hour, Steve Fossett's Solo Spirit balloon reached Europe yesterday evening barely two days after ascending from St. Louis, Mo., where Mr. Fossett began his latest attempt to circle the world nonstop.

Riding at 22,000 feet in an unpressurized crew capsule, Mr. Fossett made one of the fastest crossings of the Atlantic Ocean ever by a lighter-than-air craft.

Crossing times by balloons and powered dirigibles are not strictly comparable because they follow different routes, but one of the fastest was made in 1987 by Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand, who flew a hot-air balloon from Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine to the Irish Sea, where they crashed. That flight took 29 hours, 23 minutes. The Hindenburg, speediest of the big airships, regularly crossed the Atlantic in 1936 and 1937 at an average speed of 85 miles an hour in about two days.

Mr. Fossett reached the Irish Sea last evening at an altitude of 23,000 feet, and sped eastward, expecting to reach central Europe at sunrise before turning toward Africa.